50 Successful Harvard Application Essays

J
OSH
P
ALAY
I look over at the digital clock at the front of the bus just as the time changes to 8:30. The engine
begins to rumble, the seat begins to shake, and the bus slowly pulls onto Route 6 and heads toward
JPA—the Jay Pritzker Academy—near Siem Reap, Cambodia. The bus is alive with chatter. Peace
Corps volunteers trade stories about their experiences in their assigned villages; international
schoolteachers discuss their plans for the day’s lessons. I overhear one of the Peace Corps volunteers,
Deidre, say, “I have to say, the Peace Corps offers incredible health care. They medevaced me to
Bangkok when I got dengue fever.”
Today, I find myself unable to join the conversation. I stare blankly at the blue cloth seat in front of
me, trying to gently coax my knotted stomach out of my throat. All I can think about is the empty seat
beside me and the uncomfortable feeling of entering uncertain territory alone.
My friend and co-teacher, Shahriyar, is in the Angkor Hospital recovering from a serious bout of
amoebic dysentery. I visited him yesterday. He was lying in bed with his summer reading in his right
hand and an IV in his left. Looking pale and exhausted, he weakly lifted his head and greeted me. “I
don’t know if you know this yet,” he said, “but I’m flying home tomorrow. Are you coming with
me?” Though the news didn’t surprise me, the question caught me off guard. As I left the hospital
room, I couldn’t help but think how easily this could have been me in his situation.
The bus drives over a speed bump faster than it should have, and I’m jolted back to the present. I
try to take my mind off Shahriyar and look out the window at the world around me. Everything is so
much different than it is in Deerfield, yet it all somehow feels very natural to me. To my left I see an
elderly woman wearing a mask sweeping dust off the street; I smile at her, but she doesn’t notice. As
the bus gets closer and closer to JPA, the fact that I will have to teach today’s lessons by myself begins
to set in. I wonder if I’m physically capable of teaching three hours of class by myself in the ninety-
degree heat and 90 percent humidity. In the past, Shahriyar and I had always taken turns leading the
class, giving each other a few moments to rest and rehydrate while the other taught. A part of me is
afraid to do it. I’ve never had to lead the class without the comfort and support of having Shahriyar by
my side. As I think about the challenges I will face, I realize how easy it would be to turn back. I only
have to call Sokun—a local tuk-tuk driver—and he’d take me to the airport. Knowing my co-teacher
has become seriously ill, nobody would think less of me if I went home today.
As I sit in my seat, planning my trip home, the bus slows nearly to a stop and then turns onto a
narrow red dirt road. I’ve suddenly plunged into a new world. The mess of worn-down concrete
buildings and mopeds gives way to miles of flooded rice paddies stretching as far as I can see. Every
few hundred yards I see boys and young men working barefoot in the fields. The bamboo huts that dot

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the landscape make me think back to my visit to the house of one of my students, Dari. I remember
looking into his room and seeing a wooden table on his dirt floor. Close by, a bamboo shelf was
filled with books. The globe he had won for being on the Honor Roll was proudly displayed on the
bookshelf among his prized possessions. Smiling ear to ear, he told us that JPA was the best thing in
his life. I realize that it really is too late to go home. I’ve already fallen in love with my students.
As the bus pulls into JPA’s driveway, the rest of the teachers begin gathering their materials. I
remain seated, deep in thought. “Are you coming?” I hear a familiar voice ask me. I look up and see
Deidre looking at me.
“Of course I am.”
REVIEW
In essays about community service, it is easy to fall into the trap of self-aggrandizement—
emphasizing your own personal sacrifices and good deeds and in the process making yourself look
like someone more interested in self-service than community service. Josh’s essay, on the other hand,
steers well clear of this pitfall, skillfully conveying compassion, humility, and devotion to the people
with and for whom he works—he does not stay on because he pities his students, but because he loves
them. As a result, instead of coming off like résumé padding, Josh’s work feels motivated by a
genuine desire to do good.
Structurally, Josh’s essay is solid—it traces the trajectory of his thought process from uncertainty
to renewed resolve. This seemingly straightforward story arc is enlivened by choice details and
images—the off-hand conversation about dengue fever in the first paragraph, for example, adds a
good jolt of surprise, and the descriptions of the Cambodian countryside are vivid and well-executed.
The passage detailing Josh’s visit to his student Dari’s home is one of the essay’s highlights, a scene
that is both believable as the essay’s “inspiration moment” and memorable for the deep empathy it
contains.
While it’s true that Josh has the advantage of a rather unique experience—not every Harvard
applicant is in a position to write their personal statement about volunteering with the Peace Corps—
the main strengths of his essay are certainly translatable beyond this context. Josh’s essay is a
personal statement at its best: it not just narrates an experience but hints at deeper elements of his
personality and expresses them in a way that does not come off as forced. Someone reading Josh’s
essay can tell that his volunteering experience was far more to him than résumé fodder. And as the
admissions office gets deluged with more and more applications every year, this spark of sincerity
goes very far indeed.
—Erica X. Eisen

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